The last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials, who convicted Nazis of World War II war crimes, has argued that it would be realistic to see Vladimir Putin imprisoned because of the invasion of Ukraine.
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This was testified by Benjamin Ferencz during an interview with the British daily “The Mirror”.
“The crimes currently committed by Russia against Ukraine are a disgrace to human society, those responsible should be held accountable for aggression, crimes against humanity and outright murder,” the man said. almost 102 years old.
This week’s announcement by the International Criminal Court that it was sending war crimes investigators to Ukraine gave the former prosecutor a glimmer of hope.
But, for the Russian president and his entourage to be tried, the proven war crimes would have to be directly linked to them and a new government would have to be in place.
“I want to see Putin behind bars, it’s possible,” said Mr. Ferencz. “All we need is the determination to do it, they don’t live on the moon.”
The Einsatzgruppen, mobile units of Nazi Germany, were very active in Ukraine, recalled the former prosecutor, who stressed that we “return to the same game”.
“At what point do you stop and say enough is enough? I thought World War II would be enough,” he told the media.
“We had hoped that the Nuremberg precedent would deter them, but apparently it was not as effective as we hoped,” he added.
Two of the Nazis he tried during the 1945-1946 trials were also behind the Babyn Yar massacre in Kyiv in September 1941, considered one of the greatest massacres of the Ukrainian Holocaust.